Ashley Wetzel

Emily Dickinson
Topic: Emily Dickinson's silence and fear of others was possibly the greatest influence of her writings which deeply impacted the rest of the world.

1. some believe she purposfully stay in her home so that she would have a different perspective of the things she wrote about.
2. some people also believed that she wanted to meet people while being "unseen in a hallway."
3. she wrote during the era of American Literature.
4. also called the "Age of Expansion."
5. which was approximately between the Civil War and WWI
6. this was also the time when other American literature was transitioning from Romantic to Realism writing.
7. realism writing was having a more realistic outlook on certain things.
8. she was said to have written more in the era of romantic writings.
9. but she combined the elements of romantic and realism together.
10. this is why she is said to have a deeper perspective of such things.
11. she would write about things in nature such as flowers and animals.
12. this gave people the assumption that she had an "imaginative realm."
13. but she would also write about things such as death.
14. which showed people that she did understand reality.
15. people believed that she wanted to meet people without the awkwardness of a common meeting
16. she wanted to meet people unexpectedly instead of possibly set up by someone else.
17. she also did not rely on what she saw to describe things she wrote about.
18. instead she tried to look into them in a deeper manner.
19. she wrote about many things including love, death, religion, and nature.
20. she also used dashes in her poems to emphasize a pause.
21. some claim the dashes could be used for the reader to process what was just said.
22. she sometimes wrote in free verse.
23. she also capitalized most of her words.
24. this was said to also emphasize certain themes she was trying to portray.
25. she used many adjectives to describe the things she saw, heard, etc.
26. these adjectives created alot of imagery for the reader.
27. some say this was also one of her goals to accomplish in her writings.
28. some say she did not care what others thought of her work.
29. some people do not believe that she does not deserve all the credit she gets for her writing.
30. her Irish immigrant servants said that they deserve to be recognized.
31. they always said that if it were not for them, she would not be here, for they fed her, cared for her when sick, and clean the space she lived in.
32. people say that maybe they should refer to her as Emily Dickinson Maher, because of Maggie Maher, one of her lifelong servants.
33. but maybe she did not think of them as servants, but as family.
34. people say her fear of religious change affected her silence.
35. as well as changes made from scientific discoveries and a growing economy.
36. maybe all these changes were also something that affected her writings.
37. she enjoyed writing about nature.
38. she did not title her poems
39. except, in some of her letters that she sent to other people, she referred to certain poems with a title.
40. but we still do not use those titles today.
41. she did not title because she obviously did not want her writings to be published
42. she would have rather kept them to herself.
43. she felt that love and having good relationships with others was very difficult.
44. she rarely communicated with others.
45. the people she did communicate with were very close to her.
46. she wrote many letters to people.
47. in those letters included some of her poems.
48. she wrote many many letters to Charles Wadsworth.
49. many think that he was her influence for writing many of her poems about love.
50. her silence was a great way for her to explore how she felt about things.
51. she did not care what others thought about things.
52. she wrote her poems to express her opinions and feelings.
53. she never had any intention of publishing her work.
54. she also wrote many letters to a man named Benjamin Franklin Newton.
55. he eventually died.
56. that impacted her life greatly.
57. it also impacted her many writings of death and love as well.
58. her writing greatly impacted others as well.
59. she wrote during the time of the Civil War.
60. so of course, women did not have equal rights.
61. she did not write directly about women's rights.
62. but she did write about how she felt about being a woman during that time.
63. her entire family became Christian.
64. but she refused to agree to be Christian.
65. her family tried to convince her to convert many many times.
66. this gave her a different outlook on her religious beliefs.
67. many say this influenced her about writing alot of her religious poems.
68. she believed and practiced the philosophy set by Emerson.
69. "Whoso would be a human, must be a non-conformist."
70. she is said to have great American Patriotism.
71. this is because she did not have the intention to publish her work.
72. meaning that she wrote from her heart.
73. not because of a paycheck.
74. so today, she is considered a major American poet.
75. along with other greats like Walt Whitman, Wallace Stevens, and Robert Frost.
76. many people have now recognized her today.
77. there are 2 schools named after her in the United States.
78. there is an official literary journal that was established to examine her work.
79. a commemorative stamp was issued in 1971 as part of the "American Poet" series.
80. and even a one-woman play titled "The Belle of Amherst."

"The Influences of Emily Dickinson." SlideShare. N.p., 2008. Web. 3 Dec. 2010. http://www.slideshare.net/ibytautaite/the-influences-of-emily-dickinson-2658177.

"Emily Dickinson." Essay Chief. N.p., 2002. Web. 3 Dec 2010. http://www.essaychief.com/free_essays.php?essay=754065&title=Influences-On-Emily-Dickinson.

Zapedowska, Magdalena. "Wrestling with Silence: Emily Dickinson's Calvinist God." (2006): Print.
Cappello, Mary. "Dickinson's facing or turning away." Southwest Review 90.4 (2005): 567+. Student Edition. Web. 3 Dec. 2010.